The Weird Irony of Anti-Semitism

[quote author=“Iisbliss”]
Anti-semitism implies the Jews as a race are involved in one or more evil conspiriacies to get all our money/control the world. It does not imply they are in any way inferior.

Thanks for illuminating the difference, Iisbliss. You reminded me that nuances are critical, especially is something so subtle as language. Sometimes less is more, sometimes not.

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“If you belong to any particular ideology, to a specialized prejudice, even if you call it religion, then you will be the cause of strife and misery.” - J. Krishnamurti

We can’t help the color of our skin, but people who belong to a particular ideology should understand that by doing so, somebody of another ideology is going to hate them. If you set yourself apart from the rest of humanity in some way, somebody is going to hate you. Do we have a standard term yet for ‘anti-atheist’? Godless something? Whatever our religion, do we really expect other religions to like us? Is the question only about whether one is a different race or a different ‘ism’? Different ‘isms’ cause strife and misery. If we want to be an ‘ism’ then we should know we’re going to be hated. If we raise our kids into an ‘ism’ we should know that thousands, or millions, or billions, are going to hate them.

There’s a history of racial/religious persecution that goes back time immemorial.

Iisbliss wrote:

In the far past, I think we didn’t tolerate too much difference without bloodshed eventually. Do you consider war persecution? Genocide? Forced Slavery? Do you think when Rome or Egypt took slaves, they were racially and religiously motivated?

War? Tricky - depending on motivations and objectives. But possibly and often. Genocide? Often, but not in cases where the objective is merely the consolidation of power. Forced Slavery? Often again. The first choice of a nations slaves isn’t their own population usually. It’s usually the populations of other nations (which in the day, meant other tribes). That’s a racial persecution there…

So what’s all that mean? It means that in general, generalising is generally wrong. As we have both pointed out to each other. But I stand by the statement.

Iisbliss wrote:

Anti-semitism implies the Jews as a race are involved in one or more evil conspiriacies to get all our money/control the world. It does not imply they are in any way inferior.

Superiority and inferiority can be measured (by those who engage in this sort of thing) in countless ways. Isn’t good vs evil a battle of moral superiority vs moral inferiority? The word “inferior” is inherently a word expressing relative worth, in much the same way as racial/sexual/religious prejudice is a relative statement. (My Race/Sex/Religion isbetter than yours).

Admittedly, you got me on a technicality, but again, I stand by that remark.

Mia Wrote:

Thanks for illuminating the difference, Iisbliss. You reminded me that nuances are critical, especially is something so subtle as language. Sometimes less is more, sometimes not.

Not wrong there! Nuances ARE critical. And the fact that they get pounced upon is why I come back to this forum. Keep it up everyone!

unsmoked Wrote:

What am I missing here? Is the question only about whether one is a different race or a different ‘ism’? Different ‘isms’ cause strife and misery. If we want to be an ‘ism’ then we should know we’re going to be hated.

Using that argument, I could say to the quote “If we want to be an ‘ism’ then we should know we’re going to be hated” that that’s a good reason for Jew’s the world over to drop their own ism.

But anyway, my argument isn’t for more ism’s, it’s for less. In a utopian world, none at all!
Realistically though as long as humans are idiots, racism will exist. And in that world, I see 2 words for racial prejudice. Racism. And Anti-Semitism. I just don’t see why we couldn’t do with one word less…

My father was a racist who used a different euphemistic slur for almost every color and nationality except his own. He didn’t know the term, ‘Anti-Semitic’, but would often use Shakesperean names for Jews, or worse. Maybe the global village (soon we can go anywhere in an hour) will get superiority and intolerance boiled down to one word. Why don’t we give up on ‘racism’ and ‘Anti-Semitism’ and coin a new word - a word that splashes back on the user?

My father was a racist who used a different euphemistic slur for almost every color and nationality except his own. He didn’t know the term, ‘Anti-Semitic’, but would often use Shakesperean names for Jews, or worse. Maybe the global village (soon we can go anywhere in an hour) will get superiority and intolerance boiled down to one word. Why don’t we give up on ‘racism’ and ‘Anti-Semitism’ and coin a new word - a word that splashes back on the user?

The words “racist” and “Anti-semite” already splash back on the user - both have negative connotations.
And racists will have a different insult for every race other than theirs. These individual derogatory words don’t form a part of my argument, as a racist will always come up with new words. My argument is that anti-jew racists shouldn’t be differentiated from any other racist.

. . . but do Jews consider themselves to be another race? In all the world, the most despised group are, probably, the atheists. If you are a theist despising an atheist, are you a racist? In that case, don’t we need to call the despiser an ‘anti-atheist’ so we know what we’re talking about?

Interesting one this. My presumption was that the Judaism is a race and a religion. I have jewish friends who back me up on this. However, have a look at this.

So the issue is now slightly confused for me, as I have been making this argument based on race, rather than religion. And I think Anti-Semitism is a fine word for describing religious intolerance of Jews, in the same way that you describe people as being anti-islamic, or anti-catholic etc. To my knowledge, there isn’t a word that describes general religious intolerance, and as such, being specific about it makes up for it.
Splitting hairs? Very possibly. But discussion such as this is how we find out about our true thoughts, rather than assume them.

You bring up a point though. A person who practises racism is called a racist. A person who practises sexism, you call a sexist. What do you call religious prejudice? theolocism? And a person who practises it a theolocist?

Personally, I’d rather there not be a word for that one, as it’d give people ammunition against me (and alot of people who’ve read End of Faith…)

Are you kidding me? I am going to become a telephone psychic. I’ll clinch my clients by telling them the name of their cats. My cat’s name is Pomme, with a wad-ya-collit over the e. Another po’!
A person who hates cats is called a felist; a dog hater a canist, no a caneist.

His full name is Pomme de Terre (potato), but everyone calls him Pomme (apple).

Addressed from another and hopefully not too tangential angle. “Intertribal” animosity seems to be an evolutionarily influenced tendency among all primates not just Homo sapiens. http://www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/pdf_attachments/dewaal_ethics2004.pdf It is part of a much larger problem that perhaps existed during the entire 4,000,000 year existence of hominids.

I find it offensive and bigoted that any group of people would classify themselves as “god’s chosen people.” I have heard this from various sectors of the Judeo-Christian and Islamic religions. I belonged to such a group and voted with my feet. Incidentally this religion is supposedly fairly mainstream…yikes…it scares me to think back on the beliefs of many Christians. But I digress. I will not associate with groups that place themselves above other Homo sapiens.

Genetically we are all so similar that the terms Jewish, Irish, German, Chinese, etc make interesting studies in sociology but these terms are very misleading concerning our true relationships as members of our species. When I look at an African-American, Jew (who are impossible to distinguish from those of various European origins), Asian, etc I see “Homo sapien.” The other divisions in my opinion are usually pointless and sometimes damaging myths. In my opinion we will continue to have issues between various “groups” until humanity comes to the understanding that they are actually neither Jewish, Chinese, Italian etc and are just like everyone else. In short peace will be found when egalitarianism reigns.

“Most of the Israelites did not come from outside Canaan - they emerged from within it. There was no mass Exodus from Egypt…no violent conquest of Canaan. The early Israelites were - irony of ironies - themselves originally Canaanites!

The conquest of Canaan by Joshua could not have happened [as] described in the Bible. Most of the towns…either weren’t inhabited, didn’t exist or were conquered at wildly different times.” —Finkelstein and Silberman

I am new here, and I just have to say that I’m glad this forum has an “ignore” button. “Treblinka” will have the honor of being the first poster I’ll be able to ignore.

And thanks, Lisbliss and Mia, for injecting some important information and sanity into this thread.

There is no “weird irony of anti-Semitism”. It is a particular prejudice with its own unique history. The term used is simply a by-product of its history and most reasonably educated people understand what is meant by it.

Jew refers to religion.
It is not a race, as 99% of the world’s ’ so called Jews ’ are of Russian Khazar ancestry, and are in reality, pagan gentiles,
who call themsevles Jews.

to be anti Jewish is to be opposed to the religion of the Talmud.
to be anti semitic is to be opposed to the semitic people
,such as Arabs and Iranians and Iraqis.

Judaism is the religion of the Talmud which is a compilation of varuious laws and beleifs that hundreds of Rabbi’s all with thier own ideas have added in to this book.

It has nothing to do with the religion of the Old Testament of Abraham, Isaac and Moses.

The religion which follows seamlessly from the teachings of Abraham, Isaac and Moses and is the continuation of the One True Religion is Catholicsism, which is why so many hate it so much.

A post like this permits us to explore a distinction: this is classic anti-Judaism, but it is not antisemitism.

Antisemitism is different in kind from racism (not least because “Jew” is not a race, even though there is a Jewish people). Antisemitism posits that Jews are a cosmic evil, a malevolent force; unlike racism which is merely the assertion of inferiority by one group of another based on observable but morally irrelevant characteristics, like skin color. Antisemitism is at once a belief in the Jews power and its evil. This belief only gets going after Christianity rises into a major world religion. John has a variety of antiJudaic comments (far more so than the synoptic gospels). No other people has ever been accused of a crime of deicide. (See e.g. Constantine’s Sword). And it receives its greatest support from the Tsarist forgery: Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Antisemitism is of course Europe’s most successful export to the middle east. Rationalism and scientific world view didn’t quite make it, but antisemitism did. It gets a serious foothold in Arab lands after the 67 war. In that war, three nation-states lost to a tiny country. How could Arabs, with an imperial tradition of their own account for this loss? You need a narrative that both makes you feel better about being part of a ossified culture and let’s you hate your enemy at the same time and blame him for your cultural failings. The easiest way is to assume that your enemy is the devil incarnate.

As for Treblinka, this is typical antijudaism. Based mostly on total ignorance not only of Judaism but of Catholicism and its doctrines as well. For those who care: in Judaism there is both the written and oral law. Both were simultaneously revealed at Sinai. Talmud is commentary and rabbinic rulings on the law.

And antisemitism only refers to hatred of Jews. Read Bernard Lewis’ excellent: Semites and Anti-Semities. No one attributes to Muslims or Islam a sense of cosmic evil. People who have a problem with fundamentalist Islam (Salafism) are opposed to it because it is obviously completely incompatible with a liberal, free, and open society.